God-free living in a God-heavy world

Tag Archives: debate

The video has finally made it online! As promised, here’s Matt’s debate with Jay Lucas, which I recapped earlier. Unfortunately, the audio is a little crappy, but I haven’t managed to find it anywhere else.

I was recently engaged in a debate on Reddit’s ‘DebateAnAtheist’ forum with a person who defined God in a way that made God an incoherent concept. When I pointed this out to him, he actually agreed, saying that God would have to be incoherent to humans. I don’t think he got my point, which is that the concept was logically incoherent; he was describing a god that (by his own words) didn’t exist and wasn’t a thing, but that he still believed in.

If you’d like to read the thread yourself, it’s right here. You may have to search for me (MikeTheInfidel), but if the scores of the various comments are any indication, I’m not alone in my frustration.

In case you haven’t heard of it: Intelligence Squared (IQ2) is a multinational series of public debates held on often controversial subjects touching issues like race, religion, sexuality, and politics. They’ve got a great backlog of debates featuring prominent speakers from all across the spectrum.

On September 6, IQ2 Australia held a debate over the proposition “Atheists are wrong.” Here’s the summary:

Having been persecuted as a dangerous minority for centuries, in recent years the champions of atheism have achieved celebrity status around the world. Atheists have been quick to point to the evils done in the name of religion and to claim that their criticism of religion is grounded in the demands of reason. Their opponents have championed faith as a source of inspiration and as an essential aspect of the human condition. However, beyond rhetorical skirmishes, in the end, just one fundamental question must be answered: does God exist?

The video isn’t available yet, but when it is, it’ll be online here. I’ve never heard of any of the speakers, which should make it interesting to watch. In any case, judging from the pre- and post-debate audience poll results, it should be interesting to watch; the pro-proposition group decreased slightly, the undecideds almost vanished, and anti-proposition group jumped by 10%.

Often, when I’m bored, I’ll watch a good theist vs. atheist debate. Tonight, I was watching a debate between William Lane Craig and Lawrence Krauss about (unsurprisingly) whether or not there’s evidence for God.

Every week, the Atheist Community of Austin puts out a great public access TV program called The Atheist Experience. The show broadcasts live online at Ustream at 5:30 ET pretty much every Sunday. Typically the show features a pair of hosts discussing a subject related to atheism, skepticism, critical thinking, separation of church and state, and so on, followed by a period where they take calls from the audience. This week, though, they featured famed Christian apologist Ray Comfort (he of Banana Man fame). Continue reading →